#When a warmup sketch becomes a doodle

[sugarsweetvirgo]

Thinking about the new Minecraft x Lush set… 💜🛁🖤

[princessfanonanona]

Something I've noticed lately, and has become really prevalent, is the idea that a "warmup doodle" is anything less than a full illustrated completed piece.

Which is NOT correct.

When I was in school, and it follows every single sport I ever participated in, it was taught that a warm up is a way to physically warm up and loosen muscles to prevent injury which is why you also have cool down stretches to help get any lactic buildup out of the muscles to prevent cramps.

So it should follow that a warm up drawing should be movements to loosen and relax the muscles in your drawing hand/arm to prevent injury before actually working on a piece. This means drawing squiggles, loops, hatching areas, just absolute nonsense. (There's also a whole slew of physical stretches that you can do as well to help, but that's for another post). The point of warm up drawing is to physically warm up and loosen the muscles directly related to holding your stylus/pen/paintbrush/charcoal/whatever before you actually work on the piece you actually want to work on.

"But this isn't a fully illustrated art that took me bajillions of hours to complete, so its obviously-"

A sketch! A practice drawing! Drawing exercises! A speed test! A draft! Concept art! There are so many other words to use to describe your art!

A professional soccer player doesn't just warm up and go play in a match. They have drill practice, they have mock matches, they have exercises and trainings and everything in between.

Your art is the same.

You need to practice, anatomy exercises, line exercises, shading practice, point drills (draw a bunch of dots and connect them with as smooth of a line as possible without a ruler), hatch shade practice, color exercises, etc. You know what a lot of classical artists did before painting on the giant canvases? They sketched the image over various iterations to get the shape and form and layout, they did a rough painting to show what colors and where they were to go, and did it over and over before working on their final pieces.

Just because it's not perfect, does not mean its just "a warm up doodle." Please expand your vocabulary and understand a "warm up" is to prevent injury not "imperfect illustration." You are not only hurting yourself physically, you are going to hurt every young artist who's still learning.

[peachii-nitenite]

Whipped Into Shape- Chapter 1 Muse and Maestro

summary: you reminisce about your beautiful friend, and she reminisces about you in return.

Mel x Reader Centric Chapter

chapter contents: mutual pining, fluff

fic masterlist

ao3 link

◈—-*——☆——-*——◈

Now Playing: She- Dodie

◈—-*——☆——-*——◈

You met Mel for the first time in your first year, second semester Art Basics class, when you had been paired together for a warmup sketch exercise. 

And she was the most beautiful girl you’d seen in your life. Blindingly so, like the sun, like a star-

Like a Muse.

When you broke free from your trance of admiration, you plucked up the courage to stiffly introduce yourself. When she smiled, you briefly thought you had finally died of exhaustion and met a real life angel. She laughed prettily too.

It was hard not to stare. Not when she was exactly the kind of girl that sparked inspiration.

There were murmurs, eyes from around the room flickering towards her. It wasn’t the same sort of look you usually got, not in the slightest. There was awe, admiration, disbelief- but nothing blatantly negative.

You could tell right then and there she was someone important, even before she graced you with an introduction.

“I’m Mel, Mel Medarda. So…shall we get started?”

Her voice was smooth, warm, accented, and had no hint of malice or apprehension. It was more like she was assessing you, rather than judging you.

You liked that about her.

And she liked that you treated her like a normal person. You weren’t awestruck by her family name or who she was related to, you were simply in awe at her as a person. An individual. A peer.

You were equals as artists, and you were shocked to learn it wasn't her major after seeing the quality of her still-life sketches. She preferred painting landscapes, backgrounds, and design plates.

 “I find faces oddly difficult…so my models never have proper heads-” she giggled after showing you her sketchbook. Fashion design was her minor, her “indulgence”, she called it.

You smiled and admired her work with starry eyes.

“Maybe we should work together then!” you pulled out your own sketchbook for her to page through. 

You give her an eager grin. 

 “I’ll admit, my weak spot has always been landscapes…” 

You hit it off quickly, becoming more relaxed and comfortable as you chatted your way through the warm up. Despite her elegant and regal bearing, you found out she was much more nonchalant than you expected- after all, she was basically a princess, and such a weighty legacy would stress anyone out. You would talk for hours swapping stories, talking about the way you see the world, about your creative pursuits, about your dreams-

About anything and everything you could think of- the conversation always came easy with her. And it was intensely refreshing to talk to someone who wasn't speaking to you strictly out of necessity or courtesy for once. You could be yourself, and that meant everything to you when it came to your friendships.

People often called her mysterious, or hard to read. Those people didn't know her.

Sketches of her littered your sketchbooks; of the face she made when she was trying not to laugh, of the face she made when she was focusing on fine details- endless doodles of her enigmatic eyes. She was easy to read when you really knew her. She preferred gold over silver, warm tones over cool tones, and detested the feeling of charcoal pastels. She was mischievous, a sucker for gossip, easily grossed out by insects-

And you found that the two of you were very alike.

She was a princess- sure, but she was always a Person first to you.

And that's what she loved about you. You were her reprieve from the weight of the expectations placed upon her. She made sure to tell you frequently.

She often found the Piltover elite tiresome, vapid, and endlessly boring. You were a breath of fresh air, as she had told you during a wine drunk night of gossip.

“Tell me, are they all… like that?” she whispered as you lounged in your tiny living room

“Are all who like what?” you looked up from your near empty glass with a quizzical brow

“The Piltovans. Are all of them so hopelessly dull or is it just the ones that I have to see every day?”

You snorted as you took another sip, moving to refill her glass as well.

“I ask myself the same thing almost every day, thank god I'm not the only one!”

She shot you a catlike grin, conspiratorial and satisfied as she clinked her glass against yours.

She was elegant in every way. She was everything you wished you could be.

You’d be envious if you didn’t enjoy her company so much. Or the special feeling of knowing that, as important as she was, she had chosen you to be friends with.

It meant a lot to you.

So despite the gap between you, it wasn’t jealousy that filled you when you spent time together. Just pure admiration.

She was simultaneously very close to you, but seemingly always a hair out of reach.

Like a muse.

You couldn't wait for her to come back.

Not when you had such big plans for this school year.

A new philosophy-

“Take Chances, Take Opportunities, and Take No Shit”

It was the sort of thing that would make her chuckle if you said it out loud.

Sometimes, you got bashful when you remembered just how astounding the few friends you had were. It made you feel so….normal in comparison. And growing up with so many expectations on your shoulders, it actually did more help than harm to your self esteem.

You were surrounded by gleaming, unreachable stars. But you were happy just to see them.

Your fond reverie was interrupted by the sound of the bus screeching to a halt, jostling you in your seat. 

You took out your earbud to assess the situation. The driver was cursing loudly as he laid a heavy hand on the horn. Some idiot had run a red light and clipped the front driver’s side of the bus. You looked at the time on your phone and sighed in despair. Judging by the familiar street you were on, you weren't too far from campus. But if you lingered, or tried your chances catching the shuttle, you would probably be late. 

Your best bet was to run.

Aw hell. 

It was gonna be a rough day.

You texted Mel, getting up and settling your school bag on your shoulder.

—-

Messages: Mel✨👑

                                                               You: Pray for me. It's gonna be a long week…

—

Across the sea, your muse smiled sympathetically at her phone as she texted you back under the table. Anything you had to say would be vastly more interesting than whatever the mouldy old politician schmoozing up to her mother was currently spouting.

You. One of her dearest friends. Who she admired so dearly.

You were like the wind on the beach- free, clean, and fresh in comparison to the stale air of old mansions and stuffy networking events.

She wondered how your eyes would light up when she came back, and furthermore when she showed you the new pieces she had been working on.

Especially the fact that she had been practicing how to draw faces better.

Starting with yours.

“—But of course, her studies do come first, but I’m sure she could spare some time, so she and my son could—“

She rolled her eyes discreetly. She was so sick of these false, strategic friendships with the spoiled, vain, grown children of diplomats:

She was one of them, after all. She knew what could lurk beneath the veneer of perfection.

Smile when journalists bark and hound , pose when the cameras probe, and make nice with whoever provides the best optics at the moment.

It was exhausting.

She had seen the article about you before you had met. She often kept up with the local news of the places she visited for long stretches of time.

Your art caught her eye before your picture did.

There was something so dynamic, and passionate about it, even simply seeing it secondhand through her phone screen. Like dreams put to page, or like raw emotion finally processed.

Flawed, real; human, above all else.

She became something of a fan, rather quickly.

When she said she was pleased to meet you, after having met the intriguing artist in the flesh— it was one of the rare times that semester she had said it to someone and actually meant it.

In you she had found her very own, real, friend.

She kept that to herself, almost out of a fear that something or someone would keep you away if she were too open about it. After all, her status did come with burdens she’d never want you to shoulder.

But never in her life did she think she would yearn for school so badly.

But here she was. Dreaming of essays and late nights in your dorm living room that was the size of her closet. With no expectations, no facade to uphold.

A greedy part of her wanted to keep those moments all to herself, hidden away from the eyes of the world. To hide away with you for as long as possible in the little bubble of your cozy room.

Just her, her favorite artist, and her own pencil.

A landscape to hold your portraits.

She could not be greedy, and wouldn’t dare interfere with your social habits.

You were like the clean wind of the ocean. She could not harness you, even if she truly desired it.

So close, against her skin; but ultimately out of reach.

She smiled at the old man across the table as she texted you back discreetly, her face unchanging despite her disgust with the old coot’s leering gaze.

“Mel darling, what do you think? I’m sure you and his son would get along quite well” 

Her mother’s scheming tone did not go unnoticed.

Another inevitable photo op. Another political pawn on a chessboard.

She smiled at the old man across the table as she texted you back discreetly, her face unchanging despite her disgust with the old coot’s leering gaze.

“…of course mother, one can never have too many friends…” she responded, coolly and with her usually elegant flair as she hit send on her message.

——

Messages: Maestro💛🎨

Mel✨👑: I will�� I may need some prayers from you as well 🫠💫

—------------

[didderd]

☕ Do you do warmup sketches before drawing? (Bonus: do you have any to share?)

🐻 Your go-to things to draw when you need comfort?

🎁 Do you prefer drawing fandom stuff or your own characters?

🌊 What’s the hardest thing for you to draw? 

🙊 Share your latest silly doodle with no context

☕ yeah sometimes. i should do it more, but i often end up getting distracted with my warmup drawings, and they become more than warmups kgfjbn

here, i think a few of these were intended as warmups:

some bitty twitchies ft. Scar by @/skelekins (and Snaps) also Kil by @/smokbeast (and my sona) 🐻 (answered here) 🎁 fandom stuff, but nowadays usually my own variants/ocs in fandoms. (my only original sans i have a good handful of drawings of already, but i wanna get the ref out before i start posting his doodles (like i'm doing with the twitchy sanses that aren't out)) 🌊 mechanics i think. stuff like that that's detailed and aren't interesting to look at/fun to draw. it's hard and i lose motivation fast. 🙊

:3

[art-by-reed]

Completely unsolicited art advice :3

Draw what you see, not what you think is there

This means when you're drawing from life, be aware that your brain is telling you different information to your eyes. And what you wanna draw is what your *eyes* see.

You see this table? Can you see all four of it's legs? No. Make sure your brain doesn't trick you into drawing the fourth leg - you know it's there, but you *can't see it* right now. If you draw the fourth leg, you'll be distorting the perspective of your image, and it won't look as natural as the camera does.

You see this still life? When you draw or paint your still lifes, make sure you only draw what you see. If you get the curve of the underside of that pear wrong, you might end up giving the viewer a glimpse of the wall, the gap between pear and jug. That's not what you see. Don't draw it. Rub it out and re-draw the curve of the pear til you've *drawn what you see*.

Draw what makes you happy

For me that meant fanart. You won't practise enough if you only have a passing interest in drawing. Drawing for the sake of improving your skills can be a weak motivator, and depressing cause it's really hard to see your own progress and you'll be drawing inspiration from more experienced artists. You should draw your otp, draw your crush, draw anything that makes you feel something.

You don't need to make finished pieces

Doodle in the margains of your schoolbooks. Draw eyes. Draw anime boys. Get yourself a sketchbook that you don't show people, where you can just draw freely without worrying about it being good. Just draw. Don't apply pressure to be perfect.

Does Usain Bolt get out of bed, step onto his private running track, and sprint at full speed immediately? No, he needs a warmup. He won't even be able to *reach* full speed every day. Your art might sometimes feel like it's worse than before. Individual pieces might be worse than previous pieces, but you yourself will not be a worse artist than before. You just need a warmup.

I've gone months without drawing and then drawn absolute crap lmao. Don't let it get you down

Don't fiddle with a finished piece

Every single piece I've posted to social media, I've found a flaw with, even if it took me months to notice. Remember you're always getting better, so when you look back at a piece you will be looking with a sharper artistic eye than when you finished it. Resist the temptation to take down your art and edit it; you'll be doing that every 6 months for the rest of your life. Let it stand as part of your journey, and make a note to do better in your next piece.

No-one sees your art like you do

No-one sees the mistakes until they spend as much time staring at it as you have. What they see is the initial impact of the piece, whatever that is. The striking colour, the movement, the emotion, whatever the focus is. You often become blind to the most striking element of your work after working on it so long.

Bonus tips:

Practise gesture drawing. Just lightning quick sketches of the human body. Draw and move on. Do it today, do it now. Get off tumblr and find a pencil. Here's a website that'll help you:

https://quickposes.com/en

Adjust your screen settings so what you're seeing is what a normal screen would see; often digital tablets have brighter colours than a laptop or phone.

Get outside your comfort zone. It sucks, but just do it. You'll find you have transferable skills; it won't be as bad as you think.

Don't underprice your commissions. Figure out how long you spend on each kind of drawing, and give yourself at *least* minimum wage for the time spent. You're not only doing yourself a disservice; you're undercutting prices for the rest of the community. You're an artist now. Act like one.

And finally, if you love art, don't worry if you'll make it. There is no "talent" to art. The reason some people make it and some don't is because those people love what they do. No baby is born able to draw. Each and every one of your favourite artists used to be so goddamn bad at drawing. They're good now cause they loved it enough to persevere.

Love you. Keep going. I can't wait to see what you'll make!

Go do gesture drawing

[dtupdates-archive]

♡—DREAM was active on Dream__Fanart! He liked:

emotions ✧⁠*⁠。

SO HIGH LIKE IM ON EVEREST ‼️‼️

So high like I'm on Everest I ain't ever coming down I ain't ever coming down 🎶

my honest reaction

Everest!! ✨dreamteam forever!!🩵

1hr doodle art for EVEREST🏔️ I ain't ever coming down, I ain't ever coming down!

I HAD TOO MUCH ENERGY TO BURN OFF WHILE WAITING FOR EVEREST TO COME OUT SO I MADE THIS RANDOM FLOWER DROT ?????????

Remember what you came from (dream doodle)

Dear Dream, It's easy to love you🩷

🏔️

and I did it . This lil fairy wants nothing to do with pirates or fighting, he's only interested in taking naps, long naps..

Three angels

doodles since i got rusty 😩

There's nothing else but right here, right now 💚🧡🩵

Game night!! 🎮

Howdy 🤠🤯

For the discord summer icon competition thingy! I just wanted to enter once, vote me if you like :))

“To who ever wants to hear”

Afternoon chess with the dream team

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SYLVEE !! 🎉🤍 it’s sylvee day everyone :DD

Dream and his...buddies🤭

TO WHOEVER WANTS TO HEAR :)

to whoever wants to hear;

Baby grge is tired‼️

dream team FOREVER !!

warmup sketch ⛅️

some musicians chillin :P

they're pocket sized

I’m sorry for the person I’ll become when drEP releases 👍

just wanted to draw dream in these hats again cus he’s so cute

tiny🤏

am ready for drep

together... to the end... biblethump

just totally normal shower bonding time between bros, nothing to see here 👍

trying to doodle in train is definitely something

Howdy, partner! 🤠

Tiny dream! What will he do?

strawberry boba 🍓

baby

doodle :^)

does anybody know where is he looking at

some dre doodles

?😟

HOW DID BRO LOST HIS CAT BEANIES?? 🤣🤣😨

POV you find your roommate very casually chilling on the couch on his phone while also wearing ur shorts

Dream and patches vs sapnap ♟

pookie loves pizza 🍕

biblically accurate height 🤏

when @Dream_Fanart is active when ur at school (i promise ill make actual fanart when im at home)

friends + their adventures!

the mask returns...

I had to do it, okay

baby pink and baby blue:D✨

✨⭐️

Dream

To whoever wants to hear... "So high like I'm on Everest"

dreams been cooking in the studio again

EVEREST !!! 🏔️(i'm so excited )

EVEREST OUT NOW

Everest

He stays winning

necesitaba dibujarlo AWHWHWHWH <3<3

they're at the beach

dream has another announcement guys???

hes confused...

[sysig]

It doesn’t seem to respond to yelling

[arpad5421970]

Week 5 - Studio tutorial

In Week 5 we talked about the importance of freehand sketching and the visualisation of early ideas via these techniques. The activity required us to initially do a warmup routine and after which do some actual sketching of our own for another subject, Studio 1B.

The first warmup exercise required us to try to draw lines as straight as we can. It was suggested that we use a pen, so I used it through the majority of the drawing exercises.

After that we had to arrange dots at random areas of the sheet and try to connect them with one attempted line.

The 3rd exercise required us to draw a bunch of circles and after it fill them with ellipses.

The 4th exercise required us to draw a straight line in the middle, put our vanishing points on either end and construct a series of cubes floating in that space.

These exercises were quite useful and during the mid class break, I decided to doodle some sketches of a car that I came up with on the spot, and I was instructed by one of the tutors to post it in my weekly post, as it fit the theme of sketching for the weeks activity, so here they are.

After the warmup exercises I began to draw out the 12 rectangles and filled them with quick ideas for what could be my perfume bottle. I decided my emotion to be 'surprised', so I came up with the idea that the cap becomes the cover for the entire bottle and when removed its not what you expect, contributing to the surprise emotion.

After that I drew the rectangle in perspective as we learned in one of our previous lessons, and then drew in the covered state of the perfume bottle. Overall I felt a lot more motivated in class this lesson, which I would say is visible in the quality of the drawings, but it was still a fun to practise sketching.

[bmpmp3]

i guess “wobbly” isn’t totally the right way to describe what’s going on with my art, a better descriptor might be a sort of “double vision” created through an inevitability turned into an intentionality

(sorry im very sick rn and my sick brain accidentally wrote some barely readable essay about my own artistic techniques orz under da cut)

i think a large part of the reason i gravitate towards drawing analogue vs digital nowadays (ignoring the fact that i have spatial issues and i can keep track of proportions much easier on paper than on a screen) is that like, at least in my experience (growing up on deviantart LOL) traditional art, while being less popular online (at least, growing up on deviantart it was), also allowed way more room for visual mistakes and imperfections than digital art did. i think sometimes, at least for me, having an undo button ended up putting a weird perfectionism on me instead of being a useful tool orz

YOU MAY have noticed my double/triple lines in my linework, especially in long, uninterrupted lines, that’s what i mean by inevitability turned intentionality: its a sort of “line correction” like one would do when doing a rough sketch except for some ungodly reason i do it during my very permanent inking stage LOL jk jk its actually several very good reasons: you know how many artists find their rough sketches look better than their final linework? part of that is because your eyes bring in all the competing sketchy lines together as one cohesive sort of “vibe” of a line, making it look exactly how your brain thinks it should look to be “correct”

another reason is that, going back to the spatial issues, the dysgraphia is inevitable and i will always end up strange, jerky lines no matter the sketch stage or the ink stage, no matter how careful i am no matter how careless, its something that’s stuck with me for 24 years and i can usually write my b’s and d’s without a reference nowadays (the z’s are still questionable) but it’s always present - SO i’ve found, especially in the past couple years, embracing it is vital

hold on, here’s some examples of my double lines:

THIS drawing around the legs is a REALLY clear example lol

you can see what happened, the red lines are what i attempted to draw first, my dysgraphia then caught up to me half way through bringing in those big wobbles, and then i added the blue lines as a sort of corrective buffer

this one had a LOT, the orange lines were likely what were drawn first. you can kind of tell that i tend to ink from the face first because as i get to the body i get more tired and the more corrective lines need to be drawn LOL

of course there’s exceptions: i think with this girl I hadn’t done any warmup sketching (just drawing vague circles and swirls and lines or maybe a blobby creature doodle LOL) and my hands were hashtag unsteady hjdskfjds

of course when i said inevitiability turned intentionality, i do mean that part of it is done intentionally: on purpose. that’s part of embracing it: it really does just look good and feel good to draw like this. like here i can’t remember or tell which lines were drawn first, i just know it felt right where i placed all my doublelines

i think that’s why i had to stop doing digital art for a while, it tends to not be super conducive to this style of drawing, or at least i haven’t quite gotten the hang of it (despite doing digital art since i was 10 LOL). i remember like 90% of the stuff i would draw digitally, instead of letting my doublelines through i would just ctrl+z and redraw the line 3000000 times until it was “perfect” orz a fools errand that created way more work for myself and was nawt great for my drawing health (both physically and mentally very exhausting). i hope someday i can work out some techniques im happy with that make digital art feel as easy as analogue art has become for me

my chosen medium for colouring in traditonal art also helps i think, i originally gravitated towards watercolour because it was faster and easier on the hands than pencil crayons (especially as a person with this many ocs with black and brown hair LOL my pencil crayons were STUBS while the other colours were nearly untouched) but it also allows for you to get SLOPPY with it LOL painting outside the lines feels SO good and right and not painful WOULD RECOMMEND. plus, i think you can see it in my drawing of Su up there with her brown hair, because to build up deeper colours in watercolour i find it easiest to do it in layers + i cant mimic the brushstrokes very easily, i end up with these sort of simple gradations around all my drawings which i think has a similar i-liked-the-rough-sketch-best effect that the doublelines have, the weird aura tricks the brain into filling in the blanks

of course my lineart style is not super conducive for digital art colouring, paintbucket filling this shit is a NIGHTMARE jkgdfldsjhfkds that’s another thing i gotta do a lot of experimentation with..............

anyway WHAT im trying to say is sometimes the best thing you can do for your art is let your arms draw the way they want to. (also im tricking your eyes into seeing the best version of my art with my fuzzy colouring and double-lined inking. bmpmp3′s trick hee hee)

[levia-san]

I love your doodles, they looked like you put good amount of effort tho

You know, you ever saw a good sketch or doodle but they called it a warmup

👀🙏💯 I wished that my doodles would look like that

I really like your Chibis! You can draw a character very cute and draw them looking cool. I can't help but looking at how you draw the eyes. ❤️

Haha thanks! Although if you're referring to the painted "doodles", I must say they're more the exception, since my doodles tend to be more sketched than painted. Still glad you enjoy them! yes, it's especially a thing w japanese artists I think? But I can understand, sometimes when you draw you don't think much when drawing so it doesn't feel like more than a doodle. Doodles sure have a range.... And aw thanks! ToT Chibis are always hard, since they can become uncanny so fast but really happy you like them

[thesparklingblue]

Odd question but how long does it take you to draw something digitally? I tried to draw digitally but I become such a perfectionist I never finish anything bc it doesn’t look perfect. 

Hello! :)

It depends. For starters, I don't consider myself a fast artist and sometimes, especially when I'm having a bad day, drawing a single headshot can take me an hour. Other times, when I'm feeling particularly happy and inspired, the same headshot can be done in 30 minutes or less.

Try to sketch freely for a while every day. Warmups and doodles always help to loosen up. Also, from one perfectionist to another, worrying so much about a single piece is pointless. We only improve our skills with lots and lots of practice, so don't waste your precious time editing a drawing while there are hundreds more waiting for you.

[applecoreart]

--Really needed to hear this right now. I’ve avoided sketchbooks for a long time because of the ‘pressure to perform,’ but this year I really want to do more studies and practice work, as well as dabble in new subjects, techniques, and mediums, rather than feeling pressured to always crank out finished pieces to ‘fill a portfolio.’ Finally overcoming my sketchbook stigma will, I think, really help me loosen up and learn more in the long run, as well as explore and regain that sense of fun art should have, but often loses when it becomes your job.

Also, a helpful revelation I had recently that may help others reading this-- I always saw what other people put in their sketchbooks (the subjects, the style of how they filled it, the energy and flow, and the skill levels) and while I admired it, it also super demotivated me somehow from sketching and doodling and practicing more. Over time, it just became worse and worse until recently I couldn’t find the zeal to make art at all. Like scary ‘what’s the point?’ level of bad.

Thankfully I had an ‘epiphany’ moment where I realized I don’t have the same art goals as the artists I was watching/following, so by design I’m not going to fill my sketchbook the same way or do the same warmups or studies they do. You train for the area you’re in, you work with the materials you want to improve in, and you study the subjects you want to become knowledgeable in. You’re not going to become a psychology major by taking classes in accounting. Sounds obvious, but why as artists do we keep falling into that ‘maybe I should make what other people are making’  trap?

Also, there’s an old saying that if you fall out of love with something, go back and do the thing that caused you to fall in love in the first place. Remind yourself, recall it to your memory, of what caused that initial spark of passion and excitement. For me, it was doing studies of screencaps from film and animation, printing out references from BTAS and anime throughout gradeschool, duplicating them as best I could to try and capture the amazing emotions they evoked in me, seeing how the pros handled each shot, and analyzing the designs and colors, because animation is my goal.

It’s no wonder watching art videos of portrait artists and landscape painters doing sketchbook tours was so demotivating to me. Gorgeous art, amazing to watch, but the thought of filling up my sketchbook like them made all my creativity shrivel up completely, because it’s not my style or goal. So yeah, long story short, moral of the story-- ask yourself what your goals are, what kind of artist you want to be, and what you need to do to get there, and DO THAT. And if you’ve fallen out of love with your art or the process of art in general, remind yourself of how you first fell in love and revisit that if at all possible.

For me, it’s going to be doing more screencap studies of film and animation, and the thought of revisiting that process I started back as a kid first falling in love with animation, all the emotions that nostalgia evokes, has me more excited about art than I’ve felt in a long time.

Hope this helps someone out there and happy creating, -ink

[pinktatertots99]

☕️ 🐻 🌗 (ignore the lollipop one)

ksdfjklsfjlksdkl well i’ll least mention it love, afterall some might wanna know hehe so your okay love.

🌼Artist Ask meme!🌼

☕ Do you do warmup sketches before drawing? (Bonus: do you have any to share?) i used to with the paintbrush but not anymore. sometimes maybe i’ll doodle faces or small stuff involving ocs to see if they look good. unfortunately i don’t have any i’ve done recently cause i usually crop em out by the end of it or they become the final product. i will share a doodle dump though:

🐻 Your go-to things to draw when you need comfort? oof. uhm hmmmm, idk if it’s comfort but i usually draw things i’ve wanted to draw and do. like some of my bortz drawings or gem aus tbh. otherwise i usually just do vent arts which involve me crying...alot, and stabbing my heart and brain cause anxiety is a real bitch. i guess one that was considered comfort was an air vent-ing- art i did to the song melty land nightmare covered by rachie. it’s kinda hard though re-listening to that song without feeling sad or personally attacked.

🌗 Is night or day better for drawing? probably daytime tbh i don’t do a whole lot of drawing at night but i do draw randomly.

and i’mma just answer this for anyone curious.

🍭 What’s your main art blog / what do you tag your art with? i don’t have an art blog but my art tag is ‘i made this’. but specific art i sometimes use a buncha tags from a fandom i’m in, or least try to i need to go back and re-tag alot of old stuff.

[ask-bolthead-crew]

Hey,really out of the blue,sorry,but do you have any tips how to keep drawing when im never even remotely happy with what i draw?I get the urge to draw something all the time but when i have a pencil in hand and a paper in front of me i just freeze,i get so terrified because i know its not gonna come out the way i want it to so i just dont,i dont draw anymore even though i want to,and i want to improve my art and do things but i just cant get over the wall. Sorry to bother, feel free to ignore

// So the first thing to remember is that you are DEFINITELY not the only one.Art is hard, especially when you're not happy with what you're doing. I feel that way a LOT. Another thing to keep in mind is that a bad drawing never killed anyone.Sometimes you have to make a schedule for yourself... one you get past those first couple of hurdles of thinking "this sucks," it becomes a lot easier.I'm not saying you have to be proud of everything you do. In fact, it's the complete opposite. For every good drawing you do, there will be about 100 fuck ups. There's this strange expectation we put on ourselves that everything we do has to be good, and honestly it's an unrealistic expectation.What you CAN do, however, is just get into the habit of forcing yourself to do it... even if it's just a few doodles a week.What I do is I have specific characters I'll doodle as a warmup... they're my go-to guys. Kid, Killer, Heat, and Wire are four of them... But I also have my own character, Muffler, that I'll use.These become go-tos for trying out new things or getting back into the swing of drawing. They're characters/things/whatever that you eventually feel comfortable enough drawing from memory and can draw anywhere.The biggest thing is creating a no-judgement zone for yourself. If you don't feel comfortable drawing, you won't. Simple as that. Once you allow yourself to mess up, or make some bad drawings, it becomes more like second nature. Every drawing you make is a step towards bettering your skill. Think of it as a tool, not a finished product. If you get frustrated, don't tear out the page and throw it away or scribble it out. Turn the page or go to a blank area and start again. Allow each drawing to breathe and exist, even if it looks like crap to you. You never know if it might spark an idea at a later point in time, and even if it doesn't, it becomes a record of how far you've progressed... and trust me, you want those.I understand how difficult letting go of that judgement can be. It's similar to writing- just allow yourself to vomit images onto a page first. Don't go into anything thinking, "This is the end-all-be-all, and will be a completed image." Life doesn't really work that way. I'll sometimes redraw sketches for asks three times before I finally go, "fuck it- good enough."The finished pieces will come later, and chances are you won't even recognize it when it's a solid work of art until like... a week after you force yourself to be done with it... especially because, as artists, we're forced to stare at the damn thing until we drive ourselves crazy.Learning when to call something done was also really difficult for me. What I started doing was, once I got to a point where I would make changes and then immediately erase them/try to fix them, I called it done. I'll leave you with something my mentor told me about a year ago:Art for me is not a passion. I don't LOVE making art. In fact, most of the time I'll look at something I've done and go, "wow this is garbage."Art is an addiction. I don't do it because I like it... I do it because I HAVE to. If I go too long without drawing, I feel physically (and mentally) ill. I get depressed and restless. It's these times when it's even harder to pick it back up again. Sometimes I wish I could be content working at a computer for a company. Unfortunately, that's just not how my brain is programmed.But sometimes you just get the strength to push through that block, and you will make some pretty incredible stuff eventually. It just a lot of mental gymnastics and a WHOLE lot of understanding and allowing yourself to make those 100 bad drawings before you make that one good one.You'll get there, I promise. It sometimes just takes looking at things from a different perspective.

[thalia-amongst-the-thorns]

Artist Ask Meme

From this post, curtesy of @all-made-of-stardust

🖍️ When did you start drawing? Do you remember?  

Oh lord, ages ago, I was that kid who doodled on ever homework assignment and in the margins of notebooks since middle school. I think the oldest picture I still have is from when I was 12 or so?

✏️ Do you prefer traditional art or digital to relax?  

I used to exclusive do traditional art until around 2012-13, at which point I pulled a 180 and now basically only work digitally; I enjoy the convenience of instantly coloring, different textured brushes, and of course an undo button.

📏 What’s your go-to canvas size?

Usually big, 1600x1200 or more (which is a relative big compared to other artists out there).

☕ Do you do warmup sketches before drawing? (Bonus: do you have any to share?)

Usually I start out working on a pic that I intend to be the finally piece; give it 30 minutes or so and I eventually become so frustrated with the pose/composition that I abandon it and start over, so technically it’s a warm-up sketch, yeah? Sometimes I do intentional sketches to get a rough idea of designs though

🙃 Which is easier: faces facing left, right, or front view?

Faces facing left all the way.

📚 How many layers do you typically use?

Three; rough base sketch, line art, colors. Maybe four if I want to get crazy and try some fancy shading or effects.

🐻 Your go-to things to draw when you need comfort?

People/faces; I like playing around with facial structure and hair to get across character and personality. 

🎁 Do you prefer drawing fandom stuff or your own characters?

My own characters all day every day, I’ve only drawn fandom stuff a handful of times. 

🌈 Do you use more warm or cold colors?

Warm? Maybe? I think I’m just really fond of primary colors.

🎼 Your favorite music to draw to right now?

Actually, drawing time is when I finally get a chance to catch up on my backlog of podcasts (currently catching up on The Adventure Zone, The Penumbra Podcast, and Fireside Mystery Theatre)

🙌 Draw a doodle with your non-dominant hand

Urrrhhhh, bit tied up at the moment but have a messy doodle instead

📐 Whats your favorite kinds of lines to draw?

Lots of little sketchy lines that add movement (not necessarily clarity).

💐 Do your drawing suit your aesthetics?

Look dude, I barely know what my own aesthetic is, though I think this might be better answered from an unbiased/outside perspective.

🦋 Do your drawings resemble you?

I... don’t think so? Again, might be better answered by a third party, though now that I think about it a lot of artists do kind of resemble their style... which is a trip to contemplate...

(sometimes I do draw myself though ;))

✨ How often do you draw?

Not as often as I like (like, once a week if that).

🌗 Is night or day better for drawing?

Whenever I have time, but day is better in terms of just not being exhausted from my day job.

🍭 What’s your main art blog / what do you tag your art with?

Right here, usually tagged with “my art”

🍀 You wish your art was more..(fill in the blank)

Expressive, balanced, clean, proportioned, dynamic--

🌊 What’s the hardest thing for you to draw?

Not people.

but I try to branch out

🙊 Share your latest silly doodle with no context

[musesmilk]

JULIE BENBASSAT

It is hard to believe Julie Benbassat is just a sophomore student at RISD. Benbassat’s work is sophisticated beyond her years, and we expect she will be dominating the illustration world in no time. 

“I was lucky that a lot of people supported my decision to go to art school (my parents, my teachers, my friends and acquaintances), so I only got a little taste of the obnoxious people who thought all artists starved.”

Muse’s Milk: Tell us your story.

Julie Benbassat: To put it bluntly, I was raised by a really cute Jewish, elderly white couple, both being nearly 50 when they adopted me from China. Since I was only a baby when I was adopted, I didn't retain any of the culture or customs from China. To avoid becoming culturally illiterate, my parents tried taking me to Chinese school, reading me Chinese stories and moving us to a diverse area in New Jersey. As a kid I had my parents teaching me the fundamentals of Judaism and folk music while my Chinese American friends and their families helped me reconnect with my birth country. 

I think this combination had a lasting impression on me. I see it in my work from time to time (fusing Asian aesthetics with Jewish and American thought processes). 

In terms of education, I went to a good public school system. My high school art program was pretty good in comparison to most of the other schools around us. I was lucky that a lot of people supported my decision to go to art school (my parents, my teachers, my friends and acquaintances), so I only got a little taste of the obnoxious people who thought all artists starved. 

MM: Can you speak about your illustration process? How you approach personal assignments vs. client work? 

JB: My process has been constantly changing, and continues to change as I go further into my college years. I've noticed I really need to make a lot of sketches before I make a final product, whether it be client work or personal work. This isn't necessarily because I need a ton of reference shots, but rather because it serves as a warmup to stretch my thinking and creative muscles. Client work actually comes easier because the client has a vision, so I can ask them what they want. Personal work is harder but more enjoyable when the finished product is done. Normally a personal piece takes longer than a client piece (depending on the client's project though) just because I end up sketching so much. I’m trying to get faster at this, and college has really helped me speed up, so I can only wonder what my process will be like in senior year. 

MM: What are you passionate about right now, and why? 

JB: Throughout my life I've been passionate about girl power and nature in general. This probably has to do with my upbringing. My Mom and Dad are both solid feminists and nature lovers. I try to work these interests into my art, though I'm constantly learning more about each respective topic. Some mornings I find myself just going out to the local plants and sketching them cause they're so magical, or reading about famous women in history on free days. Sorry if I sound like a super feminist plant nerd. And shockingly, I'm very passionate about tea, as it is my life source. I decided to do a daily drawing challenge in 2015, where I made a tea doodle (teadle) everyday. 

MM: Is there anything you want the audience to know about you?

JB: I think I've spilled my life story here at this point. I do think it is important to mention that I'm but a mere sophomore at RISD, so I am constantly changing and evolving with no set style and I am in no rush to find it.